Reply to "Farewell Charming Olde New York, part 4"

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Brokerage giant Massey Knakal has announced, in an e-mailed press release and on its blog, that the firm has been retained to arrange the sale of 17 walk-up apartment buildings in the East Village. But not just any 17! The mix of buildings—sprinkled throughout the 'hood in many shapes and sizes and with widely varying numbers of rent-stabilized apartments per building—make up the "East Village Portfolio," purchased by megadeveloper Extell for $72 million in 2006 before the company spun if off to former cohort Westbrook Partners for $97.5 million in the summer of '07. Since that time, many of the retail/commercial tenants in those buildings—including raucous gay bars The Cock and Boysroom—have been cleared out, and the properties' managers have been accused of bullying tenants and warehousing vacant units. Now, in a crappy market, Westbrook Partners is trying to cash out. Nobody likes bad press!

The buildings are actually listed individually, but when combined they total just shy of $120 million. But don't expect the portfolio to be snapped up in one fell swoop. According to god-among-men Robert Knakal, the properties are listed individually because that's how they expect them to be sold, one-by-one or in small chunks. Knak Daddy says it's because A) financing a $10 million deal is much easier than financing a $100 million deal right now, B) they feel they can get more by breaking the portfolio up, and C) The mix of buildings is so disparate that it in most cases it doesn't make sense for one buyer to own all of them. Still, he wouldn't count out the chance that someone could take on the entire thing.